


Glitch Mob

by NCSawyer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 05:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12787671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NCSawyer/pseuds/NCSawyer
Summary: It's been the end of the world. That is, until Lexa wakes up and Becca, who isnotBecca, tells her she can save the world from its very ending: Praimfaya. Yet something isn't right; something isn'trealin this very real earth of hers, and maybe Praimfaya has happened already, after all.





	Glitch Mob

> “The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real.”
> 
> ― Philip K. Dick  
> 

 

They found her in the Dead Zone, her entire body covered in white sand. Nearly every morsel of her lavish outfit had been robbed. Gone was the signature red cloak. The sword and scabbard by which she prided herself on, having won victory after victory with it, had also vanished. Greedy souls had also taken advantage of the genuine leather, water durable boots she wore faithfully, to every occasion, to _any_ occasion. Though she bore little jewellery, only an imbecile would not know that the tiny silver bracelet she wore had been a gift from her favourite Nightblood, and a couple of her bracelets had been given as a token of thanks when Liam Grey had discovered his wallet stolen, at the front of the line of a busy bakery stall. She’d bought him five sweet coconut rolls and shooed him away, taking no notice of his stuttered thanks.

That had been a week ago, when food had not been so scarce. In truth, food— _any_ food—was locked up inside Polis. It had been a good idea for roughly two hours, until the first of the villagers began ramming against the sturdy portcullis for a morsel of bread. The City Commander (of the pathetic rubble they still called a ‘city’), had fed them pitiful scraps but it was all the once-grand capital could do. The population inside Polis was now sweltering, having taken in as many refugees and faraway villagers as they could. Accommodation for the numbers had not been an issue, as most of the houses and certainly the big Polisian tower had since crumbled. The only issue was the over-reliance on the city’s underground water system. The woods offered nothing but radioactive game, radioactive water and radioactive berries and the like. A single more person crammed inside would’ve broken the walls inside-out.

But she was alone, unknowledgeable of the chaos and far away from it.

“She’ll have answers,” one, a woman, said.

There was a man next to her. Lexa did not crack open her eyes. “What, to our impending death?”

“Maybe not answers,” the woman said, and Lexa could hear her scowl. “Maybe passage.”

“You really think they’ll take _us_?”

“They’ll take _her_.”

Zzz- _zzzz—z_

A hut was better accommodation for her than a cell. At least she could stretch her legs, wander around aimlessly, and stare at the walls. They were all the same shade. If anything, the monotony of the routine would kill her quicker than any form of torture would.

Lexa stood as often as she could. It was better for the circulation, and she supposed she needed that. Push-ups and pull-ups by the door became a necessity. When someone walked in with a plate of food only to find Lexa panting through her sit-ups, they’d immediately left the plate and scurried, as if Lexa could escape via sit-up or if they really were just that afraid of exercise.

It was a distraction. A welcome one at that, too. If her nights—terribly cold in this damp hut—had been fitful and terrible before imprisonment within the Dead Zone, then they were a great deal worse now. The back of her head throbbed insatiably, as if someone was repeatedly clubbing her until she felt dizzy. Sometimes she wondered if it was her head or if it was the top of her spine. It had only happened a few times, but the sharp jab had sent reverberations down her back. Her head jerked in automatic response, her entire body shuddering.

It was not just the lack of food. Lexa was quietly confident that she could fast for as long as her captors wanted her to. She didn’t fancy the challenge, but she was sure she could surprise them. It was the lack of _water_. Delirium was a strong word, but there was no other word for it when, on the second day of zero water, she hallucinated the Mountain Man, Lieutenant Emerson, barging through the door with a smug smile on his face.

“Breakfast?” Emerson—the ghost version, or whomever—offered jovially. Lexa was too tired to say yes or no; she was too tired to tell him to go away. “It’s steaming hot,” he continued. The crudely cast copper bowl he waved around, too far for Lexa to see its contents, was indeed steaming. “I’d feed it to a rat first, though. See if it dies.”

“Get out of my head,” Lexa muttered. It was muffled by her pillow.

“Now, now. It’s been freshly radiated for you,” Emerson said. He leant in and whispered, “Clarke, the Mountain Killer, sends her regards.”

Lexa stared at the bowl Emerson hovered next to her face. She stared and stared and stared. Stared at the charred baby’s face, its mouth still open mid-scream. The sound had died with the little boy but it lived heavy and sickening inside Lexa’s stomach, churning and churning until she gagged. Emerson grinned toothily at her, and brandished a fork. Lexa choked, and swore at him, her weak, flailing hands motioning him to go away.

“Look what you made blondie do!” he said, his excited grin morphing into mania at Lexa’s terrified expression. “She might as well have done this—” It took Emerson two seconds to stab the fork downwards, right in the middle of the baby’s face. Blood squirted from all directions, splattering her face as Lexa yelled in horror, her limbs too feeble to shove her body physically away from him.

If this was a ghost, then someone had fucked up in the underworld. Emerson only grinned that sadistic grin of his, his teeth smeared with the baby boy’s blood. Lexa could barely bring herself to look at the fork.

She could hear the slow, creeping...

_Drip—drip—drip—_

“Had enough?” Emerson pouted, tilting his head at her. “You lucky bastards are still alive. Look at yourself. Spotless.”

Swallowing hard, Lexa slowly cricked her neck so she could see her clothes. She wore nothing but a tunic, a few buttons undone, and brown breeches. Even her belt had vanished. Her clothes were grimy with mud and sweat and blood—not Emerson’s baby boy’s—and she hadn’t bathed in what seemed like an age. But Emerson had placed the baby right between them, and stabbed him—yet there was not a single speck of fresh blood on her white (now greying) tunic.

“I spared all of you,” Lexa said hollowly. “I made a _deal_.”

“Well _done_ ,” Emerson sneered. “I’d applaud you, but little Ryan would probably fall on the floor.”

“You just stabbed him. I daresay it would not harm him further.”

Emerson’s face twisted. “Do you get off being such an ass?”

“I tell the truth,” Lexa snarled. “Is he yours?”

“ _Yes_. And you _killed_ him!”

“I spared him.”

“You let those Arker brats inside _our_ walls,” Emerson snapped, his eyes glinting with rage. They’d reached an impasse. Lexa knew well enough Emerson’s blade could not hurt her—only himself and his boy Ryan. Yet Emerson did not need a blade to cut deep inside Lexa. Something recoiled in her stomach at the mere sight of him.

 _I know he’s dead_ , the logical side of her remembered. _I know he’s dead. I know he’s—_

“They— _she_ —killed us all! She knew letting in the radiated air would kill everyone and she did it anyway! Not just soldiers! Fighters! No, no, no. That _bitch_ killed children and women and _innocents_ —”

Lexa’s head spun.

There was nothing that could adequately describe the feeling. It was as if Emerson’s movements had slowed considerably, his face contorting and reddening at a stupidly snail-like pace. Even his words were slurring, but not because he was speaking too quickly, or that he was drunk—it was because each syllable dragged out for far too long. The walls of her hut seemed to transition from wood to painted brick to mud and then back to wood again, except this time the bed was gone and the wall was shoving her closer and closer, by the back, to the frenzied scene in front of her...

“THIS,” Emerson shouted, his voice raw with tears and rage, “Is what that blonde bitch did!”

He squeezed Ryan close to him, the tears streaming shamelessly down his face. The man—the ghost?—was _covered_ in blood. His son’s blood was smeared all over his face, colouring his teeth, and it seeped all the way through his tight-clinging white T-shirt. The red splotches became the new pattern for his army cargo trousers, and letting out a howl far too loud and far too _much_ to be anything remotely human, he plunged the knife into Ryan’s left eye, crying obscenely as more blood spurted everywhere, defecating the already grimy, muddy hut.

Devoid of sympathy, yet strangely moved, Lexa knelt before him. She did not dare look at Ryan. Lifeless bodies were always difficult to accept; a baby—a ghost or not—mauled to death by a vengeful man—a _father_ —was a step too far. Lexa averted her gaze to the floor.

“You think you’re so honourable,” Emerson said faintly. Lexa closed her eyes at the sound of his knife clanging to the floor. “You think you’re beyond death.”

“I suppose you are too,” Lexa muttered.

Emerson stalked out of the door without another word, and Lexa cursed. She’d prided herself on never breaking—no matter the cost—yet a dead man alive scared the living Gods out of her. She closed her eyes, but none of the past Commanders spoke to her anymore.

Dead men.

Alive.

Lexa wondered how ridiculous that sounded in her prayers.

Over the couple of weeks she spent in the (non-hostile) Desert Zone grounders’ company, she’d managed to memorise every single guard’s schedule. Each had code-names. Buffalo guarded her whilst she slept—presumably because he was the biggest, and was to stop any intruders. A duo, Casper and Ripley, who bore the names simply because of the robbed radioactive suits they regularly swaggered around in, escorted her to breakfast in a desolate hut. They chomped through their questionable meat, and for once, Lexa was glad she had only been given rock-solid bread, so black that it may as well have been a lump of charcoal. The fifth day she questioned this, and sniffed it cautiously.

It was not charcoal.

Often, after breakfast, Casper and Ripley would slip something onto their tongue. Lexa could barely catch a glimpse of the paper-thin blotch before it dissolved, and though she could not see Casper and Ripley’s eyes through their proud orange hazmat suits, their bodies slumped against each other’s. Later in the evening, they would return for dinner. They never spoke of their mysterious fainting spells, and Lexa was not intrigued enough to probe them.

This afternoon, an elderly man sparred with her (in theory—he stood by the edge whilst Lexa swung a piece of log around) and she in turn assisted him in translating some Old English texts. A feeling of guilt would always settle for him—Whiskers, she called him—because she’d never realised the Desert People could not read. She never had cause to care. Banishing them from her coalition because of a particularly violent uprising and protest that threatened to sink Luna’s lands had been enough for Lexa to intervene it.

“It’s the end of the word,” Whiskers confided in her. The twinkle in his eye had not gone amiss, so it was difficult to tell if Whiskers had been joking or not. Lexa briefly squinted at the scorching sun beating their backs, and did not find it far from the truth either. “And yet...” Whiskers chuckled, “Yet I cannot read.”

“By my own doing,” Lexa said quietly. She knew what Whiskers meant.

Whiskers did not look at her with any hostility. “We weren’t to attack the Boat People.”

“Luna made accusations against you, backed with ample evidence. I had to judge fairly.”

_Zzzz. Zz--_

“I’m not one to say you didn’t,” Whiskers said. He held his hands up in innocence. For the first time in a while, Lexa noticed the lack of ‘Heda’ that followed his every sentence. And maybe it was the bread she could never chew, or the spoiled fruit leftover from dinner they’d toss into her hut every night, but she found she didn’t mind. She’d never particularly _liked_ it anyway. It had simply been a tradition ingrained in her head—and so she’d grown to like it, in a nonchalant way. It was quite like pouring someone else’s drink first before pouring your own. “She produced papers.”

 _You can’t read,_ Lexa thought dully, unnecessarily, _and nor can you write_.

The feeling of being wrong—so catastrophically wrong, so eager to look for a scapegoat that she’d pushed an entire civilisation out into this unbearable, dry heat—sat bitterly silent on her tongue. A moment passed (a moment too long), and Lexa stretched her right leg out to kick a stone away. Entertainment was not what it used to be like.

_Zzzzzzzz_

Whiskers smiled at her. By now, they’d forgone the sparring practice (it had been terribly one-sided anyway) and settled on the dusty ground. The heat was blistering and though Lexa was hot, she covered herself with her cloak. Whiskers, on the other hand, had his thin tunic’s sleeves rolled up. His skin was very dark, its tone almost like the work desk Lexa prided in her lavish room back in Polis. In silence, her eyes scoured her surroundings. She was very far from home.

“If I told you our beliefs, you would laugh,” Whiskers said.

That begged an invite. “What beliefs?”

“Our skin.” Whiskers reached inside his waistcoat and Lexa momentarily tensed, her hidden hand resting on the handle of her dagger—just in case. She hated this. She hated how she had to immediately go for her weapon, when it had been _all_ she’d been trained to do. Whiskers took an agonisingly long time to brandish whatever it was he was about to brandish, and Lexa’s shoulders dropped when she saw a battered box. “They say we have been more blessed by the sun than anyone else. We are dark, but not as fearsome as your General. We have excess almonds to export once we use them for eyes. Though I am uncertain if they ever came up with an explanation as to why the sun would _want_ us booted out of our own homes.”

Lexa’s cheeks burned in shame. She could remember leading the charge on the last village. It had been the farthest east, and not even Indra’s rousing speech could gather up enough soldiers for the pillage. It had been Lexa instead, who’d stood up furiously and claimed to raid the village on her own, that had spurred the horrified soldiers into accompanying her. Indra had later marvelled that it was the largest force of witless soldiers she’d ever seen.

And here were the consequences...

_Zzzzz—_

“Do you play?” Whiskers asked suddenly, unpacking his scruffy checkerboard. Lexa shook herself, glassy eyes regaining life. Inside there were a muddled group of pale stones, half of them painted black—perhaps by kohl or something—and he looked expectantly at her. “You should know,” he began, voice low, as Lexa reached for the black stones. “You will be treated as a prisoner here.”

“You’re not treating me like one,” Lexa said. Her head throbbed. It felt as if Whiskers had just smacked her with the corner of the checkerboard.

“Prisoners needn’t be treated with such brutality they might as well die. Or, I mean, they just die.”

“Don’t kill someone in the capital, then.”

“For those who steal bread for their famished, pregnant mother?”

Her head spasmed involuntarily. Lexa knew where this was going. She focused on her black stones, refusing to let the old codger get to her. Yes, she knew her laws were imperfect. Yes, the system was not flawless. Yes, people still lived in Polis in poverty. And no, the rich would not give away their gold to those “stinking low-lives”. She busied herself with organising her pieces on the makeshift checkerboard, fully aware that Whiskers’ eyes were boring into her skull. She could not make laws different for different social classes. A law was universal, therefore so was the punishment.

She was a Commander—not a miracle-worker. And just because she had been present for every hanging or whipping, it did not mean she condoned it. It did not mean she subconsciously checked her naked back in the mirror every night to make sure the invisible scar marks did not leave too much of a lasting impression.

“You know nothing,” she ground out instead. “Perhaps dreamers such as yourselves are suited to the isolation of the Desert Zone, where there are _no_ laws and _no_ civilisation.”

“I was not implying anything,” Whiskers said.

“I didn’t say you were. But I did not write the first laws. I only enforce them. And I will enforce whatever the First Commander wrote. That’s my duty—and only the Commander knows truly of duty.” Lexa looked pointedly at him. The strange noise inside her head would not go away. It felt as if a bee was flying around in her skull. “Not you.”

“The Desert Zone has no duty for hospitality towards Commanders who have exiled them. Yet here I am.”

“A choice you made. Don’t put this on my shoulders.”

“You would do well to remember that your own kinsman shot you in the stomach, and yet the exiles nursed you back to health, _Heda_.” He spat the word so harshly that it sounded more of an insult than a title. “That’s my one,” Whiskers said offhandedly.

 _Zzzzz—_ Lexa pinched the bridge of her nose-- _zzzZ_. Her eyes stung. “What?”

“That,” Whiskers pointed to the pale pebble in Lexa’s hand, “Is not yours.”

“Yes it—my apologies,” she corrected quickly, carelessly tossing him the pale stone. Whiskers shot her an odd look, but she suspected it was because he’d begun to differentiate between her blushing out of embarrassment, and the red hue of her sunburn. She closed her eyes forcefully, blinking away the jolt in her brain.

Whiskers frowned at her. “Are you alright?”

For once, Lexa had no reply. Sensing this, Whiskers packed his checkerboard game away and Lexa wordlessly handed him the pieces she’d picked. She supposed it was plenty of food for thought tonight—except she was the kind to reject food from strangers. Sullenly, she shuffled backwards so her lower back rested against a flat rock. It was the only thing resembling a pillow out in the wild, and Whiskers did not pity her. Instead, he drifted away—to nowhere, as there were no huts or signs of life in the distance—but he disappeared all the same. Maybe it had taken him five minutes; maybe it had taken him hours. Lexa didn’t know, but she didn’t much care to find out, either. Instead, she lay flat, using the rock as shade against the pummelling sun, and blinked. The slightest breeze would smack a ton of sand in her eyes if she rested at the wrong angle. By her head was a spare checkerboard piece—a pale one. Mildly amused, she considered returning it to Whiskers—he’d come anyway, because he was pedantic like that—and she picked it up to play with it. And then she froze.

Underneath was a small, paper-thin object. Lexa inched closer so the tip of her nose nearly brushed against the miniscule thing. She would not have even bothered—by the Gods, she probably would’ve _eaten_ it—except for the tell-tale sacred symbol.

It couldn’t be.

The Pramheda? The Pramheda had hidden something so sacred, so valuable, so _holy_ in the middle of this—this—

Lexa couldn’t think of a word for it. This _wasteland_. There was nothing here—not for miles and miles and miles. Absent-mindedly, she wondered how long it’d take to cross the entire Desert Zone—if they weren’t met with a grizzly death before the end of it. It’d take days, weeks, maybe even months. Who knew? Maps stopped where the Desert Zone began. Cartographers never ventured there. Only one on record ever had, and that was nearly thirty years ago. Beefy Artur of the Waterkru had sent a brave legion of men to accompany his weedling cartographer into the Desert Zone. The legion had come back, but not the mapmaker. At trial, when asked how far the warriors had ventured into the desert, they’d unanimously confessed to not even stepping a foot in it.

Their punishment had been to walk across the Desert Zone, barefooted. They never made it back.

Commander Artur had never been known for his gentility. Lexa, half-delirious and nearly dehydrated to death, barely mustered up the energy to shift her body onto its side, grunting in exertion. Her lips felt as if they’d been dragged repeatedly across sandpaper, and her throat was not faring much better. Still, her eyes had not failed her. Yes, that was unmistakably the sacred symbol. Two circles, looped elegantly together in a horizontal fashion, each line smooth and sanctified...

It had been placed in the centre of a translucent material, hexagonal in shape. Standing its ground meant it must’ve been made of a hard substance, like wood. Except wood wasn’t translucent, and Lexa could see the gold colour of the sand behind it. It definitely was not diamond. The material did not glimmer—not even in the sun. _Any_ material glimmered in the sun, but not the material of the sacred symbol. It seemed to suck _in_ light instead of reflect it, yet it was not black and light _less_. It was just... _there_.

A tiny part of her brain wondered if it was edible. If it had any juices inside. Her hunger could be curbed; her desperate need of water could not. Then—

It happened as quick as lightning. The front of her skull felt as if it had been pierced by the tip of a sword, and thrust all the way back. Lexa scrunched her eyes shut, her hoarse voice yelling in pain—but it sounded more like a dying croak. She yelled again, the static in the background—was it in her ears? Her head?—growing louder and louder. And yet, against everything that screamed otherwise in her brain, she reached out with her quivering forefinger and touched the symbol.

 

* * *

 

Lexa felt as if she’d fallen from about a hundred feet and thumped to the floor, but the feeling in her body had—well, there was _nothing_. It felt as if she’d just rolled down a hill of glass, except none of the shards had stuck themselves in inappropriate places. Though she hadn’t hit her head (Lexa wasn’t sure if she could hit _anything_ here), she stood up slowly, her mind dizzy. None of this made any sense. She squinted, and finally drunk in her surroundings.

This was not the Dead Zone.

It was completely immaculate and it looked like an expertly drawn picture of Old Earth towns, pictures she’d found in one of Titus’ book-houses in Polis. Gone was the sand, now replaced by a dull grey, freakishly smooth road of stones underneath her boot-clad feet. Lexa frowned. She wasn’t sure when she’d acquired those, since the damned Desert People had stolen them. Again, she was locked in by walls—this time with cushioning. Peering curiously at the strange square box, she deduced it was still some kind of prison—a little less lax than her hut—but infinitely cleaner.

“Do you feel guilty?”

Lexa jumped at the intruder’s voice, her heart sinking and her mind nearly falling out of its skull when she saw the Mountain Man Emerson and his wide, wide eyes.  He looked the same as before: his white tee was covered in darkening blood, his arms scarred and muscular. Emerson looked like a walking stimulant.

And dead baby Ryan was still in his arms. Emerson cradled him like he was alive.

“Doesn’t it feel nice to walk about after it happened and still control the country?” Emerson sneered. He took a giant step forwards but he was not a tall man; he did not loom over Lexa at all. Standing her ground, Lexa shrugged noncommittally. Emerson’s ‘light conversation’ dribbled away, and he took a step forwards. He couldn’t hurt her. That much she knew. Emerson was _dead_. But deep in her heart, Lexa could not help but be wary. “ _Are you sorry_?”

It was a question she’d started to ponder, ever since Emerson had worded everything that way. But if she’d never struck a deal, how many warriors would she have lost? Was it worth dwelling on the what ifs when Clarke and her people had survived, and so had Lexa’s?

She knew what Emerson wanted to hear. But Lexa had never done anything to bend to someone’s will. She sighed. “No.”

“I guessed not,” Emerson murmured. There was a pause, and some rustling. Lexa’s eyes flickered open, and they both stared down at the point of a dagger, pressed firmly against Lexa’s abdomen. It was sharp enough to draw the tiniest bit of blood—except the hand wasn’t Emerson’s.

It was hers.

“A pretty blade,” Emerson mused. He crocked his head to admire the elaborate emeralds dotted around the handle. Lexa stiffened, though the blade would not move away. “My son never got the opportunity for this. He just died, boils all over his skin, screaming...”

“Your son did not deserve you as a father.” Lexa’s voice was only just above a whisper. Emerson grinned that horrible, inhumane grin of his again and picked Ryan’s limp body off the floor. Humming something under his breath, he hoisted Ryan’s corpse by holding him at the waist.

Then Emerson’s smile melted away. Instead, his lips downturned, his chin, jutted out with the last of his dignity, trembled. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he whispered. It was hard to make out his words. Every single syllable trembled with hatred and fear and grief—and so much more— _so_ much Lexa couldn’t identify, because she wasn’t entirely sure if she could imagine. “I thought I’d secured my president’s fate. I thought I’d saved everyone in that mountain. I would torture those forty-four again and again if it meant I could save three hundred of my own, including my wife and children. Do you know what it’s like, being the only immune soldier? Do you know what it’s like, walking among the dead and realising your children’s among them?”

“Don’t do this,” Lexa gritted out. Her stomach dropped as his eyes welled up.

“Oh, I will,” Emerson said. “When you walk past children, piled on top of each other, their bodies limp, and you think, ‘ _My God, my kiddo was in that soccer class_ ’ do you know what happens?” At Lexa’s stunned silence, he violently waved the blade at her. “ _Huh_?!”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Of course you can’t. You know what I did? I threw body after body onto the floor, like a sick animal.” The tears were coursing heavily down Emerson’s face now. His grip on the dagger was becoming so loose it would likely fall in a second, but Lexa did not have the heart to take it from him. “He was right at the bottom. He’d scored. They’d piled on top in celebration.” He sniffed loudly, tensing and holding the tip of the blade straight at her. “You think I’m the bad guy, don’t you? But I stuck to my end of the deal. I can’t say the same for you.”

“My people didn’t anticipate the actions of the Sky People,” Lexa said stiffly.

“Does that make it better? My life and three hundred others’ all went away! It all vanished the day you proudly marched on our mountain.”

“What _choice_ did you leave us?”

“The same choice you left the Sky People. Stay within your territories, and there’s no problem.”

“It’s easy to say in hindsight, Emerson.”

“Then judgement day will come for you,” Emerson replied, still breathing heavily. His eyelids drooped slightly, and Lexa absent-mindedly wondered how badly her brain had been fried. She was speaking to a dead man, and all she could think about was how tired he looked. Not for a corpse, but for a real man. “Praimfaya and all that.”

Lexa froze, the tip of the blade still slightly piercing her skin. _Praimfaya_? Her mind was foggy, but the end of the world was hardly something to forget about. The pressing question was how _Emerson_ knew, or certainly why _this_ was part of her mental breakdown, and she dared to stare at him again, the frown etched across her face. He muttered something under his breath and then “freedom”—and then—

“Praimfaya,” Emerson whispered again, his face now so close she could smell his stench crawling up her nostrils. It smelled like rotting flesh and blood and a piss-covered table at the inn— “Touch me.”

 _And feel nothing but cold air_? Lexa felt the cold steel sink into her abdomen and she groaned quietly—not quite the agonised scream she’d been expecting—as it settled in her belly, almost like a warm whisky would. Her back arched, her entire body rigidifying. There was nothing to qualm her nerves. _Nothing_. Her breathing quickened, each breath getting shallower by the second—and all she could stare at was dead little Ryan, Emerson’s cursed son. Doomed to die at the hands of a deranged father—or had Emerson been right? It had been Clarke?

 _I left Clarke. I left Clarke to murder_ —

“Ryan probably wished he could’ve died like this,” Emerson sneered in her face. His breath washed over her again, and she did not have the energy to recoil. Either her or Emerson—she presumed it was her (after all, he was dead)—twisted the blade and Lexa yelled out in agony. She could feel the blood seep through the backs of her breeches, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her teeth grinding together.

She would _not_ die like this.

Emerson grabbed her by the chin roughly. “Don’t lose consciousness, you stupid bitch,” he snapped, shaking her violently. “I want you awake until the last minute. I want you to feel your body go stiff and I want you to feel like a peasant when you shit yourself in death.”

“I—”

Lexa’s eyes widened. No. _No..._

Her right hand, slippery and covered in blood, shot up to yank his free arm, and he tightened his grip on her chin. His arm. His solid, real, human, fleshy arm. Lexa’s mouth fell open, the urge inside her to throw up quickly becoming overwhelming. Emerson...Emerson was _dead_.

It seemed as if Emerson realised the same thing as soon as Lexa did, and he laughed. It was utterly devoid of humour, and full of derision and hate. _If it had been Clarke_ , Lexa thought erratically, briefly thanking the spirits that it _hadn’t_ been, _he would’ve torn her apart limb by limb_.

Emerson pointed to a patch on the back of his neck. There was a scar. It was long, but against a different angle of light, it would not have been _too_ noticeable. It didn’t stick upwards by much, like a ridge. It looked as if someone had carved a tiny slit into his skin where the fat was, and sown it carefully back up. Clearly, it was the work of a medic. Except Emerson was not a medic. “Apparently, the Skaikru are dead,” he told her nonchalantly. Lexa ignored the tight squeeze in her chest. The searing pain in her stomach was too much to ignore, but she could not help the tears streaming down her face, of their own accord. Lexa was not a crying woman.

She was no robot, either. Emerson sheathed Lexa’s blade back where it belonged and instead cradled her sagging body, revelling in the feel of a woman’s life sapping away from her—right up against him.

“You’re my next best thing,” Emerson said. He smiled, like it was of some comfort to her. “Clarke’s still alive. She flew back off to space with her friends once she’d finished ruining our earth for us. So I’ll make sure you meet your end on _earth_.”

Lexa’s fist closed around the handle of her returned blade. She eyed his neck. “Where was it again?”

“What?”

“I forgot.” Lexa idly traced the tip of her blade that she’d unsheathed yet again—to the space an inch or so below the back of his ear. “Why did you point there?”

“You’ll find out.”

“You’re right.” Lexa dug the blade into the spot he’d picked out, and he yelped. He was very much alive, and Lexa needed to know why. “What—is—it?”

“P-Praimfaya,” he gasped, his legs thrashing until Lexa sandwiched them between her own.

“You keep saying that.” Lexa dug in further, and he cried out. Momentarily, she shook her head, irritated by the shudder it sent up her spine. She swore violently, pressing harder. She could see crimson spill from his muddy skin, and for some reason that made her feel better. Was it the bloodshed? The inevitably bloodthirsty warrior in her? Or was it confirmation that maybe she was not going mad; that even dead men could bleed? “How are you alive?”

“Alive in your head,” Emerson retorted. “Does this grant me actual life now?”

“You are not one I wish to ponder the meaning of life with.” Lexa pressed harder, watching closely as the blade dug into his skin. The very spot he’d pointed at, an inch below his ear. It didn’t feel right. Lexa’s stomach turned as she realised what it meant. She’d killed a hundred warriors by stabbing this very spot. Never before had there been... _something_...there...

Emerson’s eyes widened. He struggled, yes—but it grew less frantic, and when a slippery hand reached out to weakly grab Lexa’s spare forearm, she did not shove him away. Instead, he studied her closely. “Torturing a dead man is fruitless, you know,” he croaked. He mustered the effort to smirk at her, and he squeezed her forearm. “Be as smart as they say you are. Praimfaya. You can feel it.”

“What?”

“Your...your head. Y-you will know it. Hear it. _Let_ it.”

“I know,” Lexa whispered, “I want to kill you. I want to see you when I kill you.” Her fist clenched the blade handle so hard she worried it would crumble in her grasp. Emerson was nothing but a snivelling, pathetic coward who would do anything to get out of any sticky situation—which _he_ usually landed himself in. He was a liar. “Clarke should have killed you publicly.” She leant her face in. “Jus drein jus daun.”

The blade sunk deep into his head, and moments later, he drooped and sagged to the floor.

Lexa felt satisfied, and it frightened her. Absently, she tried to stem the bleeding from her stomach, her bloodied finger going to her mouth instinctively—she’d done it ever since she was a child—and found it tasted nothing like it used to.

That frightened her even more.

 

* * *

 

“Clarke...”

There was a pause as Lexa’s hazy eyes adjusted to clearer vision. She was still in the same grey room, with the same hard tiles—except she was on a spacious, if somewhat lumpy, bed. It reminded Lexa of those atrocities the Skaikru called sleeping quarters, only double, perhaps triple in size. Her stomach burned, but it wasn’t unbearable. A few moments earlier, she could recall someone forcing her mouth open and jamming something solid into her mouth. “Swallow” was the instruction given, halfway through Lexa chewing the damn thing—and nearly vomiting.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispered again, when the person above her didn’t respond. The initial fuss of stitching up the wound and suppressing the bleeding was gone. “Clarke...is a...a healer...”

“That’s right.” The voice was soft, unrecognisable. Lexa could just about make out the clanging of surgical equipment, and then her vision—blurry as it was—was completely blanked out as her carer put a warm compress over her eyes. “Relax,” she said pre-emptively, just as Lexa felt the urge to thrash pointlessly in the bed, to remove the compress and look on Clarke with her own eyes. “You’ll rip something. And you look like you scratched the edge of your eyelid.”

“I was stressed,” Lexa muttered.

“Then don’t be.” The voice she still could not place. “Now why don’t you tell me more.”

Lexa laughed. “About what?”

“I don’t know. About me?”

“You know everything about yourself,” Lexa teased back. _This_ was Clarke. It was Clarke in her mind, anyway. She pressed her lips together. Very rarely, she allowed her desires to overcome reality. It had served well over the timeless period she’d spent in isolation with the blank Desert Zone occupants. They fell into an amiable silence, with the occasional hiss of pain from Lexa. She’d been admonished on several occasions (“if it hurts, Lexa, just let me _know_ ” or “you’re not being brave by not yelling—just do it if you need to”). And it was so irrevocably _Clarke_ that Lexa just wanted to tear off her compress and kiss her ‘til there was no tomorrow. Because recently she had been living in some sort of strange limbo and she wasn’t even _sure_ if there was a tomorrow.

The man—one of Luna’s Boat People, Whiskers—had not been a complete stranger. This _place_ was, if it were an entity or a being—a complete stranger. Lexa had no recognition of its pristine white walls; nor did she have any memory of a sparring pit, or a big oak tree to sit under when the sun became too hot. She _did_ remember Whiskers, though. Brief flashes of a checkerboard and a grinning old man, twiddling his beard in thought, smacked heavily into her brain. Lexa did not dare mention this.

It frightened her sometimes, though she was never one to back down from fear. This was different than marching to war, though. This was something worse. This was in her brain. And if anyone found out that their Commander was suspected of an infliction, she would be dead before she could even plead a case.

Death did not frighten her. It was succession that did. _Whom_ that succession would fall to if she did not rebel.

She trusted her people would wait for her to return to Polis. Whiskers would nurture her back to health. But she was not a fool; nor was she excommunicated. She’d heard of Ontari’s insidious attack on the sleeping Nightbloods. Dishonour was her middle name. She thought of the big, specially constructed bedchamber for all of them to sleep in. When she closed her eyes, she could see her children lying face-down in a pool of their own precious, unique Nightblood. She could see Aden’s glassy eyes, his throat slit so hard his head nearly lolled off.

The thought made her feel sick. Ontari was sitting on _her_ throne. Lexa could feel it. She hoped, spitefully, that the jaggedness of the wooden logs that were used to construct the majestic throne would shred her to pieces—almost like the first time Lexa had plopped down on it, all smugness wiped from her face as she yelped in pain.

For the briefest of moments—she even allowed herself to be scandalised—she hoped so-called pacifist Luna would kill the new Ice Queen for her.

“Casper?” she called out tentatively. Someone was cutting her tunic open. “R-Ripley?”

“Not quite.” It was the same woman. “You don’t remember, Lexa?”

“You’ve covered my eyes.”

“The last time I checked, eyes have nothing to do with remembering a voice...” The woman chuckled. Clearly, Lexa’s lack of amusement was her source of amusement. There was a tickling sensation on her forearm—the kind you feel when someone hovers their hand over your skin, but it’s not quite touching—and then soft, soft, _the softest_ fingers tenderly splayed out against her arm. Gradually, her fingers traced an invisible shape upwards, and Lexa sighed contentedly. “Lexa?”

“Just...”

“I know, I know.”

“ _Clarke_...”

“I know,” she said again, sadly this time.

Lexa exhaled deeply, squeezing her eyes shut. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not dead, you know.”

“I know.” If she thought Clarke was being humorous, she would’ve smirked at her. But there was something inexplicably melancholy about her tone that made Lexa stop. Clarke didn’t bode well with mocking anyway—it was why Lexa enjoyed tossing her snide remarks every now and then. But there was a difference. When she was actually, truly upset, Lexa could sense her from a mile off. She did not consider herself predatory (by the Gods...) but it was as if she could sniff out Clarke’s sense of foreboding or mourning. She could not, this time, but Clarke’s voice was tinged with too much sadness to ignore. “Clarke?”

“Forget that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said: _forget that_. I’m doing it for your own good.” Still blinded, Lexa waited in patient silence as the warm compress over her eyes was reluctantly taken away. It felt like she’d been spending years and years in blind captivity now. This time, when her eyes adjusted to the beaming, far-too-unnatural light of—was this a laboratory?—she squinted. Her eyes fell on the numerous scalpels and other—other medical equipment she could not identify—by her bedside table. There was also a strange-looking, orange, see-through pot (except it wasn’t a pot—well, something like a mini-pot) with a white lid. Inside, there was a pile of tiny white flattened circles. Lexa relished her gift of sight, and bent her neck so she could read the label. It was in Old English.

“Codeine, thirty milligrams,” came the woman’s voice. “Once I ween you off the IV drip, I’ll get you back on oral meds.”

“ _Ivy_...”

“Close enough.”

The woman’s laugh was enough to divert Lexa’s attention. Quickly, she snapped her head to the right, her legs dangling off the side of the bed. There was some sort of contraption stuck in her arm she daren’t yank out—and when she voiced her desire to the healer, she advised heavily against it. Except this wasn’t _just_ her healer. Lexa had been studious; she was clever. And she had common sense.

“Polis is gone,” the woman said urgently, her eyes scanning Lexa’s face. Neither moved, utterly rigid. “The coalition has been torn apart. It’s a lawless land out there, Lexa.”

Lexa digested the information slowly. The coalition...

 _Polis_...

Her life’s work. Years had gone into crafting a capital city worthy of the Commander’s seat. The sweat of her Trikru workers had soaked through the high defensive walls. Constructing the portcullis had strained Anya’s back, much to her chagrin. Her people lived and evaded and hunted in the trees, but Polis, the centre of everything good about this godforsaken earth, had been crafted by Trikru hands. It was her home, just like Alexandria, her birth town, had been. She lived amongst Trikru blood, sweat and tears every day and every night.

And now it was gone.

“The Ice Queen takes the seat,” the woman reported mechanically. Lexa knew this already. _My Nightbloods have been butchered_. She did not have the heart to say it. “Your students...”

“I need to find Clarke.”

“I know.” The answer surprised Lexa. She stared downwards, afraid of who she’d see. She didn’t sound gruff enough to be Luna. She didn’t sound as petulant as Ontari. She was not as gravelly as Indra. And she wasn’t...she just wasn’t Clarke. As much as Lexa had willed her pillow-soft hands to be Clarke’s...it wasn’t. “You need to find her. One of your students, Mitchem, is by the door, waiting for something to send. I believe you chose him last time to send a correspondence, albeit not to Clarke.”

Lexa frowned. “How do you know Clarke?”

“She’s linked to this—far more than you know. She’s the only one who might be able to stop it.”

“Stop...Stop what?”

The woman sighed loudly, and Lexa thought perhaps she’d said her name out of pity. It took her a moment, and Lexa refused to look up until she had a valid answer. Part of her heart was still aching for the loss of her Nightbloods. She’d never lost an _entire class_ before. It felt as if someone had clumsily tried to rip her heart from her chest, and had succeeded in stealing one valve only. “Praimfaya, Lexa,” the woman said regretfully. “The end of the world as we know it.”

Mouth agape, Lexa finally allowed her gaze to flicker upwards. _Definitely not Clarke_. A woman stood by her bed, her medical gloves covered in Lexa’s black blood. Though her hair was restrained with a net, her safety spectacles had been taken off. The unflattering hospital gown had done nothing to hide her identity, and suddenly Lexa knew where she’d heard that voice from. Her dreams. So many dreams had consisted of the third commander boasting of his drinking contests, only to be countered by the Pramheda’s incessant fact-bites about liver disease and whatnot.

Lexa remembered smiling in admiration at her audacity. Here, she’d been on the brink of death under an hour ago. Yet she still managed a small smile in amazement.

Pramheda. Well...by the Gods...

And yet, Lexa realised with wonderful clarity—and she assumed Becca did too—there was only one Heda in the room. Out-of-commission, yes, but the Commander not just of Polis but of the coalition too. Lexa propped her head against the cushions and raised an expectant eyebrow. “Becca?”

“Not quite.” Not-Becca’s mouth curved upwards in a smile, and then she dipped her head out of respect. “Heda.”

 

* * *

 

_Clarke,_

_I write to you as a matter of emergency. I realise the timing of this letter is...inopportune. You must recognise my penmanship by now, but I will remain formal for the sake of it. I write to you as Lexa kom Trikru, Commander of the coalition, Voyager for peace, Unifier of armies...need I continue?_

_I write and I hope my courier finds you. I have not heard from you, though admittedly, I have not been conscious for a very long time. Or so I think._

_It has been a long time, Clarke. I know not of your people’s situation, but I know of yours. There are tales of you scattered in the forest. I want to make things right. I want to explain. But more importantly, above anything else, and even if you do not wish for the former two options—even if you do not want to make things right, or to listen to me explain—then consider my plea._

_I once swore fealty to you, to protect your people and to see your needs as my own. I bowed before you, and I would do the same now. Whomever you are with, they are under my protection. Whatever you need, I will provide. But I am of the sole belief that you and I need the same thing: life._

_There is a force set out to obliterate us and the society we live in; the_ world _we live in. I can’t explain much more than that. I have to keep these letters somewhat confidential. I beg of you: meet me in Tondc. I will explain everything. I will answer any questions you may have. I am rarely truly afraid, Clarke. But I really am. A week from now, at sunrise, let us meet at Tondc. Let us talk. If it is the last request I am allowed, then let it be. If I have run out, then please let me borrow another._

_I will see you in Tondc._

_Lexa_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truthfully, I don’t know how the chip works, or fanfiction, so I’ve genuinely just made it up. This is honestly a bit of a stab in the dark. I love Blade Runner, Black Mirror and Ex Machina so this might be an optimistic mix of all three I guess!


End file.
